0:02 Most people think success is about
0:05 discipline or working more hours. And
0:08 sure, they will get you to the top 10%.
0:11 But to reach the top 1%, the rules are
0:13 completely different. I was once
0:16 homeless and I thought I was a failure.
0:18 Today, I'm a multi-millionaire investor,
0:21 board member, adviser, two billion
0:24 dollar tech companies. And I didn't get
0:27 there by working harder, but by
0:30 designing systems that did the hard work
0:33 for me. So instead of giving you
0:35 motivational fluff, I'm going to share
0:38 five simple principles to finally do the
0:40 hard things you've been avoiding.
0:43 Principle number one, you need to trap
0:46 yourself. In 1519, the Spanish
0:50 concistador Hernand Cortez landed on the
0:53 shores of Mexico with just a few hundred
0:55 men. They were there to conquer the
0:59 Aztec Empire. Now, they were outnumbered
1:02 in an unknown land, facing impossible
1:04 odds. Now, guess what he did to make
1:07 sure his troops had no option but to
1:11 win. Cortez ordered them to sink the
1:13 ships. There was no going back, no
1:15 retreat, no surrender. That's exactly
1:18 what we need to do in our lives because
1:21 when you don't have a plan B, you will
1:24 find a way to make plan A work. I
1:27 learned that lesson in my career when I
1:29 was the chief operating officer at a
1:30 large company [music] and we acquired a
1:32 new company and it was an adjacent
1:35 business uh with an attractive revenue
1:37 stream and several hundreds of employees
1:39 joined us [music] and they had a
1:42 terrific management team but they were
1:43 in a different [music] city and there
1:45 were no direct flights from New York. So
1:47 I wasn't sure if I was going to travel
1:49 there much. But when you acquire a
1:51 company, you have to put in a lot of
1:53 time and effort to integrate the two
1:55 companies. People, [music] culture,
1:58 systems, product, customers, all of that
2:00 has to come together. And I remember my
2:03 CEO putting his hand on my shoulder and
2:06 saying just two lines, okay, man, I'm
2:08 not going there. You own it. And that
2:10 was it. And at that moment, the whole
2:12 idea of traveling there every week
2:16 didn't seem like a chore or a choice.
2:18 That became my plan A. And there was no
2:21 plan B. We had to make the deal work. We
2:24 had to make the integration successful.
2:26 And that required me to pay full
2:28 attention to the acquired company
2:30 because my CEO was going to work on a
2:32 larger picture. [music] and he trusted
2:34 me fully to take care of our new
2:37 employees and make sure we became one
2:41 company. In behavioral design, these are
2:43 called forcing functions. The
2:45 constraints that corner you and force
2:47 you into growth. Here are the four
2:49 forcing functions you can set for
2:52 yourself. First, public commitment. Tell
2:54 people what you're going to do. Announce
2:57 [music] it. Social pressure is one of
2:59 the oldest motivators on earth. Second, [music]
3:00 [music]
3:02 financial stakes. Pay before you feel
3:04 ready. Like putting money down on that
3:07 gym membership or that training course
3:09 that you always wanted to take. Our
3:11 example of that acquisition was a
3:12 financial state. We spent a lot of
3:14 money. We had to make it successful.
3:17 Third, cut the access. [music]
3:20 Delete the app. Block the site. If
3:22 things that distract you aren't
3:24 available easily, it becomes a forcing
3:27 function itself. And fourth, time box.
3:31 Give the task a hard window. 90 minutes
3:33 ship something at the end of it. You
3:36 know when retreat is not an option, hard
3:39 things that seemed impenetrable first
3:41 become inevitable. This lets you
3:45 overcome one thing everybody blames when
3:47 they can't stay consistent. That's when
3:50 principle number two comes into play. Do
3:52 you know what that is? It's willpower.
3:55 We've all had those days. It's 800 am
3:57 and you feel like it's going to be an
3:58 amazing day. You're gonna get so much
4:01 done today. And then it's 800 PM and
4:04 you've renegotiated almost everything
4:06 from your list and you feel like you
4:09 have failed, but you haven't. That's
4:12 just how our brains work. Yours and
4:14 mine. One of the world's leading
4:17 willpower researchers, Roy Balmeister,
4:19 ran a study that literally flipped the
4:21 idea of discipline on its head. For me,
4:24 at least. He brought people into his lap
4:26 and put fresh baked cookies in front of
4:29 them. Now, half of them were told not to
4:32 eat them. Don't touch it. The other half
4:34 wasn't told anything. And after a while,
4:36 some of them ate cookies, some of them
4:38 didn't. Both groups were given a set of
4:41 impossible puzzles to solve. And now
4:43 you're going to say, "Of course, I know
4:45 where this story is going." Those with
4:48 the willpower did better. But that's the
4:51 twist. Those who resisted eating cookies
4:56 gave up on puzzles 50% faster. Now, that
4:58 completely surprised me, too. But there
5:01 is an explanation. Our willpower isn't
5:04 infinite. It's like a fuel tank. Every
5:06 decision you make and every distraction
5:09 you fight ends up draining that tank.
5:12 So, by evening, the tank's going to be
5:14 empty. That's why you feel like you
5:17 failed. Not having willpower is not a
5:20 sign of failure or weakness. It's just
5:23 biology. Judges deny parole more often
5:26 in the afternoon than in the morning.
5:28 Same cases, same type [music] of facts,
5:31 but their mental fuel is depleting. We
5:33 keep trying to solve a biological
5:36 problem with vague solutions like
5:39 willpower. Noah Li is the world's
5:41 fastest man right now. Now, he doesn't
5:45 chase willpower or discipline. He
5:49 engineers it. How? Well, he has ADHD.
5:51 So, he doesn't trust willpower. He
5:54 trusts his internal rhythm. 6 days a
5:57 week, same track, same playlist, same
6:00 warm-up, same bodily movements. When the
6:03 gun goes off, he says, "I'm not
6:06 thinking. My body already knows what to
6:08 do." That's not discipline. That's
6:10 [music] design. He's not fighting
6:12 biology. He's using it. When the margin
6:15 between a gold medal and a silver is
6:19 just 1 500th of a second, those routines
6:22 give him the edge. So why not use the
6:25 same logic to your advantage? Pick one
6:26 task that you've been avoiding for a
6:28 while or the task that has been avoiding
6:31 you for a while and lock the three
6:34 variables, time, place, and trigger.
6:36 Let's say it's deep work that you want
6:38 to do and it's always 9:00 a.m. on
6:41 Thursday. And so at 9:00 am on Thursday
6:44 on your deep work day, show up at the
6:47 same desk, same playlist, phone on
6:51 airplane mode, no Slack, no email. Now
6:53 you're on autopilot. [music] That sounds
6:56 terribly simple, right? But that's the
6:59 point. Simple systems are the hardest
7:01 [music] to break. The more you force
7:03 yourself into these kind of rhythms, the
7:06 less you have to rely on willpower
7:08 anymore. Instead, you'll be able to take
7:11 advantage of your mental algorithm. A
7:13 psychologist at NYU, Peter Galwitzer,
7:16 studied students who were trying to
7:18 exercise over Christmas break. And he
7:20 did something very interesting. He
7:23 divided them into two groups. One group
7:26 was told to set goals like, "I want to
7:28 work out more." And the other group was
7:31 given something like an if then plan.
7:34 So, if X, do y. If it's Monday at 7
7:36 a.m., then you were at the gym. Both
7:39 teams had the same motivation, but two
7:42 different instructions. And the results
7:44 were so surprising. [music] The goal
7:48 setters failed 62% of the time, but the
7:52 if then planners only failed 9% of the
7:54 time. That's just how our mental
7:57 algorithms work. [music] If X, then Y.
8:00 If this happens, do that. It's a simple
8:03 but powerful system that changes your
8:05 behavior. We avoid hard things because
8:08 what we're really trying to avoid is the
8:10 emotion that comes from it. The
8:13 frustration, the doubt, discomfort, the
8:16 uneasy feeling, the imposttor syndrome.
8:18 So your brain starts bargaining with
8:21 you. Let's skip this just just for
8:23 today. You know, promise tomorrow we'll
8:25 do it twice. It doesn't work, does it?
8:28 The fix. Run the algorithm. [music] Why?
8:30 Because the if then algorithm helps you
8:34 see those emotional bargains as just
8:36 data signals. You take out the drama,
8:39 you take out the debate, and in your
8:41 head, you just run the code. If it's
8:43 3:00 p.m. Thursday, your deep work
8:45 starts. If you had lunch, you walk for
8:48 15 minutes. If it's Friday afternoon,
8:50 you review your week. If it's Sunday
8:53 night, plan for the next week. Whatever
8:54 it is that you want to program in your
8:57 if then algorithm, you can do it. and
9:00 then execute. Take out the debate. But
9:02 here's what most people don't realize.
9:04 Even with all these systems in [music]
9:07 place, there is one step that makes
9:10 everything stick to outsource your
9:13 decisions. Atul Gawande is a famous
9:15 surgeon and he was curious about
9:18 surgical errors. While he was doing his
9:19 research, he found something very
9:22 disturbing. [music] That worldclass
9:24 surgeons were making so many mistakes
9:26 that were totally preventable. [music]
9:29 They knew better. But somehow under
9:32 pressure, their performance was uneven.
9:34 So he worked with the World Health
9:38 Organization and they developed a 19step
9:42 surgical checklist. And you will think
9:44 the list would be like super technical,
9:48 right? But it had the simplest things
9:50 like confirm the patient's identity
9:54 first. Make sure all the antibiotics are
9:56 given. Make sure that the right leg to
9:59 operate on is marked so you don't chop
10:01 off the left leg. That kind of stuff.
10:04 Now you think, wait, this is so
10:06 elementary. But when the hospitals put
10:09 this simple system of checklists into
10:12 practice, postsurgical complications
10:14 fell by 36%.
10:17 and deaths dropped by 47%.
10:20 Same surgeons, same skills, just a
10:23 simple checklist as a safety net when
10:26 their cognitive load was peaking. That's
10:28 the power of the system working for you.
10:31 And the paradox here is that the better
10:33 you get at mastering something, the more
10:36 structured the systems you will have to
10:38 rely on. Checklists aren't just for
10:41 beginners, they are for experts,
10:43 especially experts who do hard things.
10:46 That's why pilots with 10,000 hours of
10:49 flying still read the same checklist
10:52 every single flight. Not because they
10:54 forgot how to fly, but because they
10:56 don't trust their own memory under
10:58 pressure. So no matter what level of
11:00 expertise you're at, you can use
11:02 checklists to become more effective. The
11:05 three checklists I love making in my
11:09 life, to-do list, the two want list, and
11:11 to be list. The to-do list is about
11:14 execution. The two want list is about
11:17 expansion and the tob list is about
11:19 personal evolution. These checklists
11:22 aren't about creating bureaucracy. They
11:24 are about creating bandwidth for your
11:27 brain so it can focus on what must be
11:29 done on the hard things. If your craft
11:32 matters to you and if your career
11:34 matters to you and you take pride in
11:36 doing hard things, [music] then the
11:38 easiest way to keep track of what you
11:41 want to do is your checklist. But even
11:43 with the simplest system like checklist,
11:45 there is still one problem. What happens
11:48 if your brain tries to bypass the system
11:50 entirely? Which brings me to principle
11:54 number five. You have to become the
11:57 system. I've seen great musicians and
11:59 great leaders and great spiritual
12:02 masters and they all have this one thing
12:04 in common. Harvard researchers scanned
12:07 the brains of Tibetan monks during their
12:10 meditation sessions and they found that
12:12 all the monks had their brain waves
12:14 [music] synchronized with each other
12:16 across all the individuals perfectly in
12:18 rhythm. Now these monks weren't trying
12:20 to focus or they weren't trying to
12:22 motivate themselves and they were
12:23 obviously not trying to synchronize
12:25 their brain waves but their nervous
12:29 system over time had evolved into
12:31 developing that pattern. Years of
12:34 repetition had given rise to this
12:36 beautiful resonance and they didn't need
12:39 motivation to do it. So what's the
12:41 secret that these monks can teach us?
12:44 Motivation doesn't drive repetition.
12:47 Repetition drives motivation. When your
12:50 brain can predict the cadence, it starts
12:52 craving the queue. Over time, you
12:55 [music] don't have to push yourself
12:58 every day. Your biology starts to pull
12:59 you forward. That's how your brain
13:01 lights up and [music] that's how you
13:03 become the person who does the hard
13:05 things over and over again. But it
13:08 almost seems effortless. Now it is not
13:11 effortless. [music] That's just a myth.
13:13 When you see someone like Raja Federer
13:15 doing that perfect serve, it seems
13:18 effortless. But he has put in thousands
13:21 and thousands and thousands of reps over
13:23 countless years, day after day, night
13:26 after night. But our brain over time
13:28 starts following those patterns. And
13:31 once the pattern takes over, your brain
13:33 stops chasing the reward. It starts
13:35 craving the repetition itself. So
13:38 tonight, don't just try to change your
13:41 entire life. Design one tiny rule that
13:44 changes your tomorrow. Build the right
13:47 systems and those systems will build the
13:49 right you. If you like this video,
13:51 subscribe to my channel for more content
13:54 like this and check out my recent video
13:56 on why you feel so stuck in life and how
13:58 to find [music] success. I'll see you
